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piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2014

It's Picture Polish Blog Fest time again! This year they've changed it up a bit, and we're using Nail Vinyls in our manicure. Firstly though, I have a swatch of Imperial to show you!

Oh my goodness, this polish was hard to photograph! There's a certain shade of purple I've always had trouble with - my camera always makes it turn out blue. I persevered, and after two photo sessions, two weeks apart I was fairly happy with the shot I got. It's still not 100% perfect - the polish is more vibrant in real life, but at least you can tell it's a purple!

I absolutely love it. There are very few polishes in my 300-strong collection that I'll happily wear on their own. Cremes are too boring and I instantly want to add nail art, while glitters are too much; I prefer them as a feature nail. This is perfect! It only needed two coats to reach opacity and I love the glittery gold flecks (again, better in real life). It's got a gorgeous shimmer as well. The only thing I didn't like about it is that the glitter tends to settle in the bottle, meaning you need to give it quite a good shake before use. Still beautiful, still worth it, still on my nails as I type! The Swatchaholic collaborated with PP to create this shade, you can check out her blog post about it here.

Moving on to the nail art, here's my design!

I received Tiffany, Fairy Floss and some right angle nail vinyls to play around with. As you can see, I also use a white polish for the background.

I must say, in the beginning I wasn't too excited about the vinyls being included. There were a lot more rules in this Blog Fest, and I had been looking forward to creating somemore complicated nail art. Plus, in the past I haven't enjoyed using any kind of stickers on my nails - they always pulled the polish off, or seeped in the edges... and don't even get me started on my relationship with striping tape.

I decided to put on my big girl panties, get over it and give it a try... and they well and truly won me over!

These vinyls were WAY easier to use that anything I've tried before. They're a lot more sturdy, they're super sticky and the thing I like the most is that they're big, meaning that you don't risk touching the part that will be applied to your nail (which would make it lose it's stick).

I had decided on my design before I learnt how easy they were to apply, and in hindsight I could have gone for something far more complicated! Diamonds, squares, stripes... next time. I was really happy with this simple chevron look though, and it was really easy to achieve. I love how it looks with two of the Picture Polish shades I was sent!

There are a heap of vinyls in the pack - as you can see below, they come in 16 blocks. I only used the first couple of layers of five of these blocks, although I only did one hand. It's quite hard to tell in this photo, but each block is made up of heaps of little right angles, of varying widths. I used tweezers to pick up the vinyls, separating them from the rest of the block and then placed them on my nail.

Picture Polish will soon be retailing these Right Angle Nail Vinyls, plus three other patterns; Chevrons, Mini-Chevrons and Straight.

1. Start off by painting your nails white, then apply a quick dry top coat. Mine looks a bit funny, as I applied the top coat in a bit of a hurry - oops! Didn't matter in the long run though. Wait 20 minutes or so for them to dry, then move on to the next step.

2. Apply the vinyls in whichever pattern you like. I went for the chevron look, and reversed the direction on alternating nails. As I said before, it's best to use tweezers to manoeuvre these, then use your fingers to press them down (make sure they're stuck right to the very sides of your nails!)

3. Apply Tiffany and Fairy Floss to the nail. I used a nail art brush for this part.

4. Paint one nail at a time, and pull the vinyl off straight away, before it sets.

5. Continue with the other nails.

6. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so went through and straightened up any lines that I wasn't completely happy with, then cleaned up my cuticles. Top coat, then done!

Again, I love them. I even went so far as to purposely leave my nice warm nail room just to show my husband how pretty they were (I don't often do that!). I'm going to try these with gel polish soon too - I'm excited to see how they turn out!

Here are a couple of swatches of Tiffany and Fairy Floss by themselves. I was so happy with the polishes I received for Blog Fest this year; pastels are beautiful, and teals/turquoises are my all-time favourite shades... so Tiffany in particular was perfect!

If you want to purchase any of these shades, you can find Imperial here, Tiffany here and Fairy Floss here.

I've made a little Picture tutorial on how to apply these, because I know people like them. However, don't look too hard - it's one of the more hideous ones I've put together! Both my old logo and Picture Polish's logo clashed horribly with the pastel!

And that's my little addition to Picture Polish's Blog Fest for 2014! I hope you guys like what I came up with, and I can't wait to see what everyone else has done!

Imperial is such a nice polish! The design you created is great - I love the colours! That Holo helmer looks amazing too - I might just have to buy a helmer so that I can get those holo stickers for it! :P

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Nailed It NZ is now an archived collection of thousands of nail art designs, ranging from simple dots to intricate artworks. Started in 2012 and concluded in September 2017, Nailed It NZ designs and tutorials are still available on multiple platforms to inspire and teach.

Nailed It NZ at it's peak reached hundreds of thousands of people per month, with thousands of related products sold - now in busy hands all over the world.

Thank you for allowing me to share my creativity with you for all these years - it's been the adventure of a lifetime.